


Battlefield of Polyester

by Em_Jaye



Series: The Long Way Around [14]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Slow Burn, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 19:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20363845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/pseuds/Em_Jaye
Summary: Woody Allen once said, 'If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." With that in mind, Darcy had to wonder if there was anyone who could make God laugh quite like Steve Rogers.August 1972: Shopping





	Battlefield of Polyester

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for all the well-wishes! We're officially moved and 85% set up in the new place.
> 
> Enjoy this bit of extreme silliness as a bunch of people (not me) head back to school soon.

A blue pen landed squarely in the center of his open book, startling Steve’s attention from where it had wandered and giving his head cause to snap up to find Janet staring at him, unimpressed. “You weren’t listening to me at all, were you?” she asked, her hands on her hips.

Steve blinked and took a deep breath in, strongly considering a lie before he sighed. “No. I’m sorry,” he said genuinely. “I wasn’t.”

She rolled her eyes and pointed to the diagram she’d reconstructed on the chalkboard of her borrowed Berkeley lab. “I was saying that I may have come up with something.”

Fully at attention once more, Steve sat up straighter. “I’m listening.”

It was Janet’s turn to take a deep breath. “Well,” she began, grabbing her chalk again. “Given that your subconscious has already experienced the future, or—” she frowned, “the past, I guess, in this case—it’s possible that if we could relax your body enough, we could stimulate your consciousness to transmit itself back to your original time-line.” She turned back to the board where she’d drawn a picture of a human brain. “I’ve seen some of the research Tim brings back with him from Tahoe and they’re studying brainwave activity when the subjects are unconscious.” She started drawing something that looked like a helmet made of thick netting. “So, they attach these little electrodes and the subject—under a kind of hypnosis, of course—is able to…” she paused and struggled for the word. “Traverse, I guess, through their own subconscious. Pull out specific memories and relive them.”

Steve frowned. “And…how will that help Darcy and I get home?”

“If we could take that technology,” Janet continued, not losing her enthusiasm. “And apply what we know about quantum and atomic redistribution and their limitations,” she motioned to an entire board of complex algebra as if he was supposed to understand. “Then we could potentially be able to project your subconscious far enough into the future—utilizing the map your brains already have of your own timelines—so that you could, possibly, occupy a host’s body long enough to send a message to your friends and tell them where you are and how to get you back.”

He felt his eyes widen as he sorted through what she was saying, carefully stepping over words like ‘host body’ and ‘hypnosis’. “That’s…that’s great, Janet,” he said as she granted him a small, genuine smile. “Let’s do that—how do we—”

The smile faded and Janet dropped her chalk. “We don’t, Steve,” she said with a sigh. “It’s entirely theoretical.” Her narrow shoulders slumped, and she dragged herself back across the room to sit across from him at the table. “Even if my math is right, anything even resembling the tech required is decades away at best.”

Trying not to be discouraged, Steve went on. “But what about what you just said—about Tim? And whatever’s going on at Tahoe?” He frowned a second time. “What _is_ going on at Tahoe?”

“Nothing he’s allowed to talk about,” she grumbled. “All he’s able to say is that it’s government funded and top-secret. And he’s not even supposed to say that much.”

He regarded her with a careful side-eye. “But you know about these hypnosis experiments?”

She shrugged innocently. “Not my fault he leaves his briefcase unlocked sometimes.”

“Can I ask something?”

“He’s my roommate,” Janet said flatly, glancing over with a pointed look. “I pretend to be his girlfriend when his mother comes to visit.”

“Ah,” Steve nodded once. “Got it.”

“Speaking of roommates,” she frowned. “Why isn’t yours here? I know it was last minute,” she admitted, of her invitation to discuss her progress. “So, I didn’t really expect you both to be able to make it—I’m just curious.”

He forced himself not to roll his eyes. “She had a date.”

Janet’s sharp features wrinkled. “A date?” she repeated. “With who?”

“Uh,” Steve squinted back in his memory. “I think this one’s name was…Russell? Possibly Rusty?” he shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s none of my business.”

It was Russell. This week, at least. Andrew had lasted a few dates and then was never mentioned again. Same with Jeremiah—a friend of Nancy’s? Maybe? He really wasn’t trying to keep track. In fact, aside from noticing the sudden fervor with which Darcy had thrown herself back onto the dating field, Steve was doing his best not to notice any of the men she’d started seeing.

“Is he nice, at least?” Janet pressed, surprising him with her interest.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Nice enough, I guess?”

He’d come to the door to pick her up—Steve had let him in without too much acknowledgement. Russell had stood close to the doorway with his hands in his pockets, looking like almost every other guy Darcy went out with. A little nervous. A little awkward.

And short.

And skinny.

Steve frowned at the realization that in two years, he’d yet to see Darcy accept a date from someone over 5’6”.

Which, of course, made sense if he had believed her when she’d said she would have slipped the smaller, scrawnier version of himself her number if they’d met at school. But Steve hadn’t believed her when she’d said that. Because at the time, it had seemed highly unlikely that the smaller, scrawnier Steve Rogers would have been anyone’s type. Let alone someone like—

“Steve?” Janet waved a hand in front of his face again. “Are you okay? You seem really distracted.”

He blinked and shook himself off the dangerous path down which his thoughts were threatening to wander. “I guess I am,” he admitted. “Sorry, Janet. I know you don’t have to be—”

But she waved a hand and cut him off. “Oh, don’t worry about it. You guys are the first people to ever even consider that I might be able to solve a problem,” she reminded him with a small smile. “I’d be stupid not to at least try to help.” She looked back at her chalkboard and frowned. “I think I might sneak another look at what they’re working with at Tahoe,” she decided with a nod, more to herself than to Steve. “I feel like I’m onto something.”

“Just be careful,” Steve said, seriously. “I don’t want you stealing state secrets on a long-shot for us.”

Janet’s smile returned as she reached across the table for her Polaroid. “Don’t worry,” she said, turning back around begin snapping photos of her diagrams and equations. “I’m incredibly discreet.”

He’d only been home for a few minutes when the door opened, and Darcy slipped inside. He watched from the kitchen as she quietly closed the door behind her. He could tell she was a little drunk by how she held onto the doorknob to step carefully out of her shoes. She swayed a little when she stood up. “You don’t have to be quiet,” he said, unnecessarily amused when she jumped and dropped her purse.

“Lurk much?” she asked, shooting him a glare as she bent to retrieve what had spilled from her bag.

Steve grinned and crossed the few feet to pick up her glasses case. “Sorry,” he said lightly. “I wasn’t trying to scare you.”

Darcy squinted at her watch in the dim light. It was almost one. “What are you doing up so late?”

“I just got back from the lab.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Oh? Hanging out with our gorgeous and brilliant _deus ex machina_ well into the evening, were we?”

They stood up together and he handed her back her glasses. “You know me, Darcy,” he said flatly. “Nothing gets the engine revving like a rousing discussion on quantum state redistribution.”

She smiled anyway. “You could talk about something else,” she reminded. “Say…outside of the lab, sometime? Where you’re not reminded of the crushing weight of our current predicament every time you look at the chalkboard?” She shrugged. “Could be fun.”

Steve returned to the kitchen and extracted two bottles of cream soda from the fridge. Darcy was still repacking her purse when he dropped onto the center of the couch and rested his feet on the support bar of the coffee table. “Please don’t tell me you’re trying to set me up with Janet-will-one-day-be-married-to-Hank-Pym-and-also-doomed-to-be-lost-for-decades-Van Dyne.”

This was the other thing Darcy had started doing. In the weeks since she’d started saying yes to every flyweight that crossed her path, she’d become increasingly concerned with his social life, too. It was starting to feel like living with Natasha, the way she kept bringing up names of women she worked with, single women she’d noticed in the building, people she’d met while out with her friends. He knew it was just his stubborn streak, but Steve couldn’t help but dig in his heels a little harder with every suggestion—no matter who it was—to remain unattached.

She accepted the soda and sat down without ceremony next to him. Her hair smelled like cigarettes and the vanilla spray she always splashed on before she went out. “Buddy,” she said, turning sideways to face him. “I’d set you up with a border collie if I thought it would get you out of the house every now and then.”

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that I’m—” he frowned and glanced down to his right. “What are you doing?”

“You’re too sprawled,” Darcy groused as she pressed her bare feet into his leg and pushed her weight against him. “Move over.”

“I was here first,” he reminded with a laugh and nodded toward their often neglected armchair. “Go sit over there.”

“I don’t want to,” she whined. Definitely a little drunk, Steve noted. “I want to sit here. Just…” she pushed harder. “Just un-sprawl like…ten percent.”

Disgruntled, Steve relented and let her push him down the couch a few inches. “Anyway,” he said, resituating himself away from her feet. “You can stop with the matchmaking. I’m fine.”

“You keep saying that,” Darcy muttered with a shake of her head. Steve watched as she frowned at her unopened bottle and reached to open it the same time she went to hold it out to him.

“And yet, you keep not believing me,” he replied, cracking the cap open with a quick twist.

She smiled in gratitude when he handed it back. “It’s not that I don’t believe you,” she said, sounding like she was choosing her words carefully. “I just…worry about you.”

It was his turn to smile as he gave her ankles a quick pat. “You don’t have to worry about me, Darcy,” he assured her.

“I do, though,” she insisted. “You’re my…” she trailed off and Steve felt an unfamiliar clench somewhere in his chest as he waited for her to finish her sentence.

“Your…?”

She shrugged. “My Steve,” she determined finally. “And I don’t want you to feel like you have to be lonely just because we’re stuck some where we don’t belong.”

His chest unclenched when she offered him a thoughtful smile. “Your Steve is fine,” he promised, almost certain he believed that himself. “And I’m not lonely,” he went on. “I still have you.” He paused before he pressed his own drink to his lips and looked sideways at her. “Unless you’re about to tell me that Rusty’s Mr. Right and you’re moving out.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “It’s Russell,” she reminded. “Which I know you know, Mr. Perfect Recall. Not that it matters because he’s definitely not Mr. Right.” She sighed and sank back against the throw pillows on her side of the couch. “He’s not even Mr. Right Now.”

He frowned. “Bad date?”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t bad,” she said. “It just wasn’t…”

“World Series?”

Darcy almost choked on the soda she’d just sipped. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand and shook her head a second time. “Hardly even the first round of the playoffs.”

Steve didn’t have anything to say to that, but Darcy didn’t seem like she was looking for a response. They drank in comfortable silence for a few minutes before she was visibly struck by a thought and sat upright again. He raised an eyebrow. “What’s up?”

“You start teaching on Monday, don’t you?”

“Sure do,” he said evenly.

He’d been trying not to think about it. He’d been officially hired after a meeting with the schoolboard, had spent a day filling out paperwork—none of which mentioned anything about qualifications, he noted—two more in orientation and in-services, and another few afternoons setting up what was going to be his classroom come Monday morning.

He’d been trying not to think about it because it still didn’t feel real. And he didn’t feel remotely prepared. Or as though he had any business teach anyone anything, outside of, perhaps, the ins-and-outs of avenging.

And even that had been mostly trial and error.

When he glanced over again, Darcy’s expression had turned contemplative. “What are you going to wear?”

Steve opened his mouth and then closed it again. What was he supposed to wear? “Uh…” He only had one shirt and jacket that could be considered professional and he’d worn them to both interviews. Rochelle—the principal and his new boss—had assured him that they weren’t formal, but he still didn’t think that meant jeans and the boots he was still wearing every day. He looked back over, dismayed to see that Darcy’s eyes had lit up. “Please don’t say what I think you’re going to say.”

“Steve!” she exclaimed. “You need work clothes and if you try to make me stay home and miss a 1970s shopping montage, I will never speak to you again.”

He sat back with a heavy sigh. He could argue. He could say he’d just piece something together with what he could rummage from the thrift store up the street. He could tell her he’d just go by himself and that he didn’t want her to come along and deal with her empty threat of never speaking to him again.

But he’d already seen the look in her eye that told him that his resistance was futile. And he was too tired to argue.

***

Steve had thought shopping for new clothes in 1972 would be pretty painful.

He was wrong.

It was excruciating.

He didn’t like shopping anyway—never had. When he was younger and half his current size, he’d been flat broke and nothing had ever fit him. Shirts billowed. Pants had to be rolled and tucked and hemmed. Extra holes punched in belts to cinch them tighter. It was a nightmare.

And then when he was bigger, still nothing fit, but just for the opposite reasons. Pants were too short or too tight. Shirts ripped at the shoulders or popped buttons unexpectedly. T-shirts were always too tight. Standard sizing no longer existed, and Steve had discovered that he would rather crash another plane into the ocean than be standing in a dressing room, looking at himself, knowing he was just going to buy the first non-descript item that fit him and be out the door as soon as possible.

Surprisingly, picking up a few essentials from Darcy’s favorite thrift stores had worked out better than expected. People were starting to get rid of their solid colored, already-worn-in shirts and plain-looking pants. His uniform for construction work had been jeans, steel-toes and t-shirts that he didn’t have to think about. It had been nice.

But this.

This wasn’t nice. This was a whole new kind of torment. A previously unexcavated, untapped level of hell. One apparently reserved for people who caused a lot of property damage while trying to save the world.

“So…what look do you think you’re aiming for?” Darcy asked as she carefully pawed through a rack of ruffled button-down shirts in a variety of jewel tones.

Steve let his eyes run over the entirety of the store. “Uh.” It physically hurt to look at some of these clothes for too long. Bell-bottoms. Platform loafers. Extra-wide, pointed collars, bizarrely pattered polyester everywhere he looked. “Preferably something that doesn’t make me look like a figure skater. Or Prince.”

She winced and let out a low whistle. “Kind of a tall order, champ. But let’s see what we can do.” She stopped with the shirts and turned to size him up. “What are your thoughts on corduroy?”

“Anti,” he said firmly. “It’s a tactical disadvantage.”

Darcy sighed and crossed the few feet to him. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.” Without warning, she slid her hand beneath his collar and yanked his head down, almost crashing it into her collarbone while she squinted at the tag. “What size is this?” she asked, more to herself than him.

“I don’t know,”’ he muttered, trying to move his face from receiving a mouthful of her hair.

“I knew you wouldn’t,” she assured him. “That’s why I’m looking myself.” She released him and gently fixed the collar she’d just manhandled. “I realize this is your idea of hell. Do you want me to just grab a bunch of stuff and bring it to you to try on?”

Steve let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. This really was his idea of hell. And not something where he could be in and out in a few minutes. “That wouldn’t be the worst thing,” he admitted.

Although thirty minutes and three mortifyingly unsuccessful outfits later, he wasn’t so sure. He caught the pained look on Darcy’s expression before she could smother it back and tugged again on the cuffs of the floral-patterned shirt she’d brought him. He sighed. “That bad, huh?”

“Don’t take it personally,” she said quickly and got up from the tufted ottoman where she’d perched. “The shirt isn’t that bad,” she reasoned making her way over to the three-way mirror. “But the pants…”

“The pants are a train wreck,” he said firmly, looking with disgust at the burgundy polyester fabric clinging to his thighs. “I look like a couch. How did people go to work like this?”

“It might look better if you tucked the shirt in?” she suggested, not looking like she believed that.

He frowned at his reflection. “I don’t think there’s any salvaging this,” he decided with a grim shake of his head. “Why does everything have to be so tight?”

“It can’t be that much worse than some of the stuff you used to wear,” she said with a shrug.

“I never used to wear anything this tight,” he muttered, pulling at the outrageously high waist again. Spending fifteen years wearing pants near his hips had spoiled him. He’d forgotten what it was like to have your diaphragm cut in half by a waistband.

Behind him in the mirror, Darcy pursed her lips and tilted her head to one side. “Am I misremembering footage from New York incorrectly?” she asked, looking thoughtful. “Weren’t you running around doing superhero parkour in an outfit that was kind of…” the fingers of both of her hands wiggled as she tried to find the word. “Spangly?”

Indignant, Steve turned around to face her. “It wasn’t _polyester_,” he reminded pointedly. Although he had hated the suit he’d worn in New York with a passion and was eternally grateful when Stark started designing him other things to wear. “And it wasn’t spangly,” he added. “It was blue.”

“It was _red, white_, and blue,” she said with a smile. “And didn’t you wear it with red go-go boots?” She motioned to her leg, a few inches below the knee where, Steve was loathe to remember, was exactly where his boots had hit him.

He felt his expression harden as he fixed her with a glare and tried to maintain his firm grip on denial. “I absolutely did not.”

“Okay, but I actually really like that shirt the more I’m looking at it,” she insisted, quickly changing the subject. Happy to be talking about something other than his least favorite tactical suit, Steve dropped his eyes and studied it. It wasn’t terrible. The pattern was still floral, but they were small flowers, and set against a dark blue that he didn’t hate. This might work, he decided begrudgingly.

Before he realized it, Darcy had moved in front of him and studied him with a more critical eye. She reached up and stopped herself just before she touched the buttons. “Undo that one?” she asked, pointing to the second from the top. He did and waited as she took a step back, tilting her head to the side. “Cuff the sleeves?”

With a shrug, he did as she asked, grateful that she’d stepped further back and wasn’t invading his space again. It was easier to breathe without her hair in his face and her perfume in his lungs. He held out his arms. “Is that…” he shrugged. “Somehow better?”

Darcy bit her lip. “Yeah,” she said slowly and then raised her fingers in a square in front of her face like she was framing him for a photo. “From your Scarlett O’Hara-esque waist up you’re a total ten.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “I don’t need to be a ten, I just need to look like I know what the hell I’m doing.”

She squinted at him, studying again. “Want to try a turtleneck?”

He sighed. “Not particularly.”

“Well it’s either that or I come back with ruffles,” she warned. “And I seem to recall a strict No-Prince policy.”

He reconsidered. “I guess if it’s black?”

She nodded once. “Black turtleneck,” she repeated. “Shouldn’t be too hard. Can you um,” her teeth clamped over her bottom lip again. “Just like, turn around? Kind of slow?”

Steve narrowed his eyes. “Why.”

Darcy glanced to the right and grinned. “Because those salesgirls are checking you out and they’re only getting half the picture with you standing like this.”

He followed her gaze to find that a trio of young women in matching skirts and blouses huddled together. They collectively dissolved into giggles and scattered as soon as he turned to look. He looked back to Darcy and shook his head. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

She held up her hands and started backing away. “I’m just trying to give the people what they want,” she said with a laugh. “Which is why I’m returning to the battlefield of polyester out here. I’ll be back in a minute.” She paused and frowned. “Unless I get lost and swallowed by one of these monstrous neckties.”

Steve checked his watch, unable to help his own smile at the image she’d just conjured. “If you’re not back in ten minutes, I’ll send a search party.”

She’d turned the corner out of the dressing room before he went back to his stall and retrieved the pile of discards. He was replacing the clothes on their hangers when he glanced up to see one of the other saleswomen—not one who’d been giggling a moment ago—had appeared to clear the rack of other unwanted shirts and pants. She shot him a quick, friendly smile before she started rebuttoning a printed shirt on its hanger. “Your girlfriend’s cute,” she said with a glance in Darcy’s direction. “You guys are cute together.”

“Oh, she’s not my—” Steve stopped and shut his mouth, deciding there was no point in getting into the details of their relationship with a total stranger. Especially, it occurred to him, one that might have been sent over on a fishing expedition to see if he was single. Over the woman’s shoulder and far from earshot across the store, Darcy caught his eye and held up a true atrocity of a blue silk tie and made it attack her like an angry puppet. He laughed under his breath and shook his head “Yeah,” he agreed finally. “She’s pretty cute.”

By some miracle, he managed to find a section of the store where the pants weren’t quite so abrasive. A few pairs in solid, safe, neutral colors and a few shirts and a sweater to get him through the next few months and they were finally out the door. Nothing silk. No platforms. No buckles that should have been on the Mayflower.

“I mean, it doesn’t matter what you wear,” Darcy said thoughtfully as she pinched a sprig of broccoli between two chopsticks later that night. “You’re still probably going to be responsible for the sexual awakening of at least seven ninth graders.”

From his side of the couch, Steve sighed and let his spring roll drop into the box of lo mein. “Do you have to say things like that?”

She grinned. “It’s a good thing!” she assured him. “Everyone needs to have one truly, deeply, completely unattainable crush on a hot teacher before they reach adulthood.” She shrugged. “I don’t make the rules.”

A slew of unwelcome images flooded his mind without warning, dragging his thoughts through the mud of mooning teenaged girls and the general mortification that came with being anywhere near high school students. He groaned and ran a hand over his face. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”

“Steve, c’mon,” Darcy set her food down and crossed her legs to sit sideways and look at him straight on. “You’re going to be great—you’re a natural teacher.”

“You don’t know that,” he reminded. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

“You’ve done this before!” she exclaimed. “You told me!”

“I’ve taught _a__venging_ before,” he said with a huff. “And after the snap, I was a counselor which was basically just teaching people that it was okay to be sad and giving them permission to cry if they needed to.”

When he looked up, Darcy was looking incredulous. “What else do you think goes on in a high school art class?” she asked, a half-smile curling her lips. “All you’re going to be doing is giving these rage-filled bags of unchecked emotion a place to let it out. Sure, you might teach them a new technique along the way but really? I can’t imagine it’s going to be much different than your support groups.”

He didn’t want to admit it, but her logic made a little bit of sense. Art wasn’t something you could mess up, after all. Not in practice, at least. And good art often came from high emotions, something that there’d be no shortage of in the halls of Skyline High School.

And if he let himself remember when he really got serious about his drawing and started considering it as a career, he’d never really dismissed teaching as an option.

He still hadn’t said anything. Darcy reached for her purse and dug into her wallet. “Alright Eeyore,” she, giving him an eye. “Let’s make this interesting. I’m going to bet you…” she frowned and the shrugged before she held up a single dollar bill between two fingers. “That you love it by the end of September. And if I’m wrong and you hate it or you’re really terrible at it,” she shrugged. “This is all yours.”

Steve smirked. “A dollar?” he asked. “That’s what my professional satisfaction is worth to you?”

Darcy scoffed indignantly. “This like, twenty-three dollars in 2013 money.”

He shook his head. “Your inflation rate’s a little off, I think.”

“Do we have a deal or don’t we, Mr. Grant?”

He sighed. Hearing his middle name as his last was still taking some getting used to. Although, he had to imagine after a few weeks of only being addressed as such, it would start to feel a little more familiar. “Fine,” he relented. “If I end up loving my job and not ruining any young lives in the first month I’m there,” he reached out and shook her hand. “I’ll pay up.”

“Good,” Darcy bounced their clasped hands once and sat back, reclaiming her food. “I’ll look forward to saying ‘I told you so’.”

Steve smiled again. “Well, I know how much you love that.”

***

Darcy was not awake when he got up and started getting ready on Monday morning. She’d requested a later shift so they wouldn’t be fighting each other for the bathroom or tripping over each other in the hallway like they so often did. He had to admit, it made everything a lot easier. He showered and cleaned up his beard and neck and got dressed in the least comical clothes he could put together from what he’d just purchased.

With one last look in the mirror, he went to the kitchen to make some toast and coffee, willing his stomach to stop it’s needless flipping. He stopped as he turned on the light. A white box with a blue bow sat on the kitchen table and with a folded piece of paper taped to the front. He frowned in confusion as he crossed to the table and unfolded the note. ‘_This should help you look like you know what you’re doing. Knock ‘em dead! -D_’

Still confused, Steve set aside the note and opened the box. He pushed aside a sheet of tissue paper and inhaled in surprise at the sight of a leather satchel. Soft, camel-colored leather, thick brass zippers and clasps. He examined it quickly, impressed by every detail. Unlike everything else Darcy ever bought, this bag was brand new. She must have paid plenty for it, he realized as he ran his hands over the his gift, inspecting it from all sides. Its panels and shoulder strap unmarked, its seams strong and freshly fortified. Plenty of space for his sketchpads and portfolios of lesson plans and other paperwork he had to bring with him.

It was one of the nicest gifts he’d ever received.

He flipped open the main flap, surprised to find another note tucked into the first pocket. ‘_I also packed you a lunch_,’ Darcy had written in her hasty, messy scrawl. Steve grinned widely as he read on, ‘_because I’m actually the best person in the world and first days of school are important. It’s in the fridge. (But don’t get used to it.) -D’_

By the end of September, Darcy was one dollar richer.

**Author's Note:**

> Darcy's comment on Steve's waistline is in reference to the fact that Scarlett O'Hara apparently had a sixteen-inch waist. Because she was fictional. (Or at least that's what The Golden Girls told me.)
> 
> \----
> 
> Come play with me on tumblr: @idontgettechnology and join me at ishipitpod.com for weekly podcast on fandom and fanfic by yours truly.
> 
> *kisses*


End file.
